The Best Laptops to Buy Now

Our Picks of the Top Windows PCs, Chromebooks and MacBooks for the Fall

Not sure which of the bajilion Windows laptops you should buy? Personal Tech columnist Joanna Stern weeds through the crop to find the right one for you and your budget. Photo/Video: Drew Evans for The Wall Street Journal.

I can rely on a few things in life. The sun rising in the east, my overpriced morning Starbucks latte, and people asking me, "What laptop should I buy?" as summer winds down. I can also rely on my usual four-word answer: Get a MacBook Air.

But that would be a very short, not to mention narrow-minded, laptop buying guide.

A MacBook Air is not the answer for everyone. For some, a Windows laptop is a necessity and, let's face it, $900—or really $1,000 by the time I recommend the larger 13-inch MacBook Air—is potentially far more than some hope to spend on a computer.

That narrows the list to about a bajillion other Windows laptops, most available for less than the price of the Air.

I've spent the last few weeks weeding through the crop, so you don't have to.

Windows Alternatives to MacBook Air

No PC maker has yet matched the Air's balance of beauty and brawn, but you'll find many capable Windows thin and light laptops—called ultrabooks—with tricks that make Apple's laptop look behind the times. Lenovo's Yoga 2 Pro backflips into a tablet, Acer'sACEIY0.00%Aspire S7's lid is covered in Gorilla Glass and HP's Spectre 13 x2 has a detachable HD screen.

You'll get power, too. Ultrabooks generally range from $850 to $1,300, and even the base models include Intel'sINTC0.14% latest Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB solid-state drive and a touch screen.

Opening a brand new laptop feels good. Then you boot up and it all comes to a screeching halt -- your shiny new hardware came pre-loaded with programs and shortcuts you don't want. You and your laptop don't have to suffer. Here's how to rid yourself of the junk.

That touch screen is a must for Windows 8, no matter what price range you're in. Despite Microsoft'sMSFT-0.38% improvements to the OS's mouse and keyboard features, switching apps and navigating the Start Screen feel more natural with the flick of a finger. And in one of tech's greatest unsolved mysteries, PC makers still struggle to make trackpads that consistently respond to gestures and swipes. (If you prefer Windows 7, you can still find a variety of laptops in the business or enterprise section of various PC maker websites.)

After testing ultrabooks from all the major PC makers, factoring in everything from performance to keyboard comfort to display quality, Acer and Lenovo's options ranked the highest in my assessment.

Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga Pro 2, which starts at $1,050, can backflip to become a tablet. But it's a really good laptop first and foremost with a highres display and a good trackpad and keyboard.
Drew Evans/The Wall Street Journal

For a thin and light ultrabook that also morphs into a tablet by flipping backwards, it's better to go with Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro, now starting at $1,050. It's got a whopping 3200x1800-pixel display and a good trackpad and keyboard, too, beating out options from Asus,ASUUY-6.93% HP and Toshiba.TOSYY3.36%

The Acer Aspire S7's touch screen doesn't flip like the Yoga, but it is just a half-inch thick, has a backlit blue keyboard, and still ekes out six hours of battery life. The $950 model on sale at Microsoft stores has a 2560x1440-pixel display, and it promises to be crapware free. That's a plus, as I had to battle so many annoying software pop-ups on Acer's loaner model that I almost didn't recommend it.

If you are looking for the Windows ultrabook with the longest battery life, the Dell XPS 13 beat out all the others, lasting over seven hours on my live-streaming battery-torture test. The Microsoft Store sells that one, too, for $950, and like all the PCs the store sells, it comes it comes crapware free.

The Best Windows Laptop for $600 or Less

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For $600, you can't beat the Asus VivoBook, with a fast chip and lots of RAM.
Drew Evans/The Wall Street Journal

As I was writing this story, one of my editors asked about the best laptop at $600 or less for his college-bound daughter. That's the price range where things get even more interesting, and complicated.

In this bracket, you'll sacrifice build quality and some specs: You'll be looking at mainly Core i3 or Pentium processors, 4GB of RAM and slower spinning hard drives instead of more durable, solid-state storage. That said, there are plenty of deals to be had.

Again, I tested various models from the top PC makers. (Yes, I've spent more time with laptops than human beings for the last week.) The 13-inch Asus VivoBook, exclusively available at Best BuyBBY0.53% for $600, impressed me more than evenly priced contenders from Toshiba and Acer.

Unlike cheap, overly plasticky PCs, the VivoBook has a metal lid, a touch screen, a Core i5 processor and 6GB of RAM. And oddly, the trackpad on it is more comfortable than the one on the company's $1,000-and-up Zenbook. (If you need a CD/DVD drive—and in this day, you really shouldn't—Lenovo's $480 Flex 15 is also worth a look.)

When you hit $400, Windows laptops come with Pentium or Celeron processors instead of Intel Core processors. These are noticeably slower, especially when managing multiple programs. One bright light in this category, however, is the $400 Dell Inspiron 11. It still has a touch screen that flips around and its battery lasted six hours on a charge.

At the Low End: Windows vs. Chrome OS

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The Acer C720 Chromebook
Drew Evans/The Wall Street Journal

Tread into the $350-and-under territory and you'll find an even bigger choice to make: Windows or Chrome OS? While I couldn't imagine saying it a few years ago, if you're on a tight budget, I'd strongly urge you towards a Chromebook, which runs Google'sGOOG-1.10% Web-based OS instead of Windows.

It's true, as Microsoft is happy to tell you, Chromebooks are more limited than Windows machines. You don't generally install programs the way you would on a Mac or PC, but the computers tend to be snappier and better constructed, not to mention safer from viruses than their Windows-based competition. Chrome OS's offline performance has come a long way. Besides, even when I'm on a Windows PC, I spend most of my time in the Chrome browser.

Acer's C720, which is now available with a Core i3 processor for $350, is my top Chromebook choice. If you're interested in a better-looking screen and nicer design, Samsung's Chromebook 2 is also worth a look.

The very cheapest Windows PC that I'd recommend, if you need to stick with Windows, would be the Asus Transformer T100. For $350, you get a PC that feels like an old netbook. The 10-inch tablet screen docks into a keyboard, and you get a whopping 10 hours of battery life. Still, its trackpad made me want to cry from frustration and the small screen and keyboard are stifling. I could work faster and better on the Chromebook.

And if you have no budgetary or platform constraints whatsoever, I'll say it again: Just get a MacBook Air.

Having finally given up on windows a month ago I bought a Macbook air. I liked it so much I got a second one for my colleague. You turn it on, it boots up in a flash, things just work, no egg timers, no crashes, no hard resets. I put Mac MS office on there to allow my .pst files to be brought over, but to be honest I am not sure you need it!! If you can't afford one, save up!! its worth the wait!!

Hi Andrew, thanks for the suggestion. I have looked at Office 365. I am not a huge fan of the monthly payment system though. LibreOffice now offers more/less the same technical functionality as Office. For any cloud based storage, I usually use Google Drive. A big exception is if you are a VBA coder. VBA (say for Excel) only currently works well in a Windows environment. On my own personal devices, I have a virtual machine set up to work around this issue. I recommend giving LibreOffice a try too...it is free. At one time I also had a Microsoft OS phone. With my own personal experience I found that the Unix/Linux derived systems (e.g. iOS, Android) performed better. I have also tried Windows 7. That was an extremely robust OS but I personally prefer the flexibility (and no cost) of say an Ubuntu for non-enterprise computing. I am not a huge fan of Windows 8. For my own business I run OpenSUSE.

If you can afford it, get a 17 inch laptop with the latest Intel i7 processor, 16gb of RAM, a Logitech Darkfield mouse and one of these new 512 GB Samsung 850 Pro SSDs and you'll be a happy camper.

Might as well get Windows 8.1 because it is faster in several ways and the Modern UI is not too bad as a secondary interface for apps like you have on your smartphone. Just be sure to also buy "Start8" by Stardock software so that you can tweak your Start menu just the way you want it.

VICK NELSON..they are talking about mainstream laptop computers. Few people I know of can custom build a laptop these days. and even if they could they probably don't have the time or desire. So how about being reasonable.

I own several Mac books which were all custom built with Solid State hard drives ect. I have to tell you that the components are not good quality. I prefer my ORIGEN laptop. I literally picked every component. It smokes the Mac in every way. Next would be the Dell Alien I had built for my son. It also smokes the Macs. You guys need to be a little objective?

Is this an opinion piece or a factual comparison? I mostly come to WSJ to read news and avoid this kind of reporting - opinions, blogs etc, offer less and less information - because honestly who cares what you think.

So this "reporter" has wasted her and my time and I will do my own research anyway because then I can get facts, specs, prices, user reviews about what new laptop to purchase, without apple fangirl opinions. Usual disclaimer - yes I own and use apple products.

My Yoga 11.6 inch laptop is just as or more powerful than a macbook air, less expensive, almost as light and has the ability to flip around and become a touchscreen tablet at night. I can't see how you could claim the Air is the best laptop out there.

Why three? The L702X is my performance machine; the Precision M6300 is my experimental machine; & the Inspiron 9300 is a print server for 2 laser printers that were abandoned (no updated drivers) at WinXP.

PS. The performance machine started the whole thing when my desktop started to flake out (I suspect a deteriorating MBoard). As a matter of fact, the desktop crashed (BSOD) as I was typing this entry. I can live with this, but need a solid system when I have a work deadline & the L702X is rock solid!

PPS. I really do not like Win8! I am sticking with Win7 until I am forced off & onto Ubuntu for most everything!

I have the MacBook Air, and its the best Windows laptop I have ever used! All you need to do is put Parallels software on it and then you have both operating systems, which sometimes is handy for people, particularly in finance, who need the functionality in the form that they are accustomed.

You give the MacBook Air a wonderful review and I agree that it deserves all the accolades but why didn't you also review the MacBook Pro, which is a much better computer (and more expensive) but as the old saying goes, "You get what you pay for". Of course if you don't need the power & features of the MacBook Pro, then the MacBook Air is the best choice. I think that any Mac laptop is better than any Windows machine but then, I have been using a Mac since the 80's!!

"No laptop beats the MacBook Air.... A MacBook Air is not the answer for everyone."

So the author's article begins with a closed minded review of non-Mac laptops!

You know, NOT everyone uses a Mac and NOT everyone WANTS to use a Mac!

There are good PC laptops out there for many users depending on their budget and preferences. To even include those references is a slap across the face of PC users and makes one wonder why the PC vs Mac debate continues to this day!

The author should be chasticed for making an article that pits PC vs Mac, each machine suited for different people with their own uses.

I appreciate Ms. Stern's comments on laptops. However, I feel that she is taking us back in a time machine to the 1990's. This is not the current direction of technology. For example Ubuntu is creating an OS (currently in beta) for your phone that will transform it into your 'PC' when docked. The traditional laptop design is big and bulky. Do we really need a large hardware design with internal moving parts and to buy more devices with design architecture that caters mainly to Windows?

Unbelievable. You've complete ignored the touch-screen advantages of the Surface Pro3 and you didn't even mention the Thinkpad X1 Touch. You Mac-believers are so nose-down that you fail to learn and recognize the effectiveness of the one feature that brought Apple back from the dead (yet they fail to add it to their Mac line up), the iOS touch-screen.

Once you learn touch and gestures, you'll wonder how you ever lived without them. Borrow a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Touch for a day and you'll change your Mac-religion. I recently retired from the tech industry (no connection to Lenovo) and I bought my son an X1 Touch for high school. My daughter insisted on a MacBook Air for the same reasons you listed. But when she saw my son raise his finger to his lips to mute his X1, she was floored. And yes, the X1 is just as elegant with a more resilient case, a water-shedding keyboard drain, and standard ports, like HDMI.

Unless you always fly 1st Class and never get on a commuter, the Apple is no better than a paper weight. Thinner doesn't help if your needs are "foot print". I am a "road warrior" and am buried in my laptop on planes and meal settings, alone.

I keep looking for a powerful Apple with a small foot print, but so far that hasn't happened. I picked up a Surface Pro a couple months ago and am quite happy with it. It fits my foot print demands, handles all my work and gives me instant shut down and power up capabilities that come in handy for working with brief moments of time throughout a day.

I have about a 9 month old Toshiba laptop that I bought at BestBuy for about $300. Plenty of processing power (I'm not a gamer, but I construct / use very large spreadsheets and databases), 750 gig drive, 8 gig RAM, etc. Also has a good sized screen which helps for data-intensive work.

I investigated super-light weight machines with chips instead of a hard drive, but it would have been well near $2000 to get one that met my needs.

So for $300, I bought time. If the newer, lighter, faster technology comes down in price, I can give this one to my kids. If not, I saved over $1500 and still have all the functionality I need, even if its not packaged to be "cool".

I understand the allure of Macs to those who prize design over utility. But for those of us who type for a living, or use spreadsheets, databases and thoughts that require more than 143 characters, the Mac designers' minimalist obsession in a nonstarter. Specifically, the Mac Air keyboard is missing keys labeled Insert, Delete, Home, End, PageUp and PageDown. I use these several hundred times a day. While the same functions are available on the Mac using various control and function keys, I work much faster with dedicated navigation needs. A slightly heftier laptop can also do the work of a desktop (meaning you need only one machine). The MacBook Air can't. For many serious users, a better alternative might be Dell's touch-screen, hard-drive-equipped 14-inch Inspiron 5000 series with the I5 processor. Much cheaper, too.

Ms. Stern totally missed the boat by dismissing the Surface Pro 3. I bought my Surface Pro 3 I5 a couple weeks ago at Best Buy where, after researching all of these lightweight boxes, got my hands on both the Yoga and the Surface.

The Surface has 802.11AC and the Yoga only had b/g/n. I can't understand how she could have failed to consider this. This is a huge "future proof" issue having 3X WiFi. The Surface has to be about half the weight when acting as a laptop and even lighter acting as a tablet since the Yoga retains it keyboard in this role rubbing it keys on your lap as you use it. The Surface has front and rear 1080p camera - Yoga has just a weak front camera. The Surface has solid state disk and, I swear, boots in a couple of seconds. Then there is the Pen . . . I could go on and on.

@bob blah The Lenovo Yoga 11 isn't remotely close to the MacBook Air in terms of performance. It also is based on the deprecated Windows RT operating system. It also has an extremely limited suite of supported applications.

@Jonathan Gregory You should take a serious look at Microsoft's phones and Office365. Complete device independence, a commitment from the new CEO to level versions across all OS, touch-screens with common functionality across all platforms, full cloud integration, etc. When you use Office365 you get the same experience and the same data from any where on the internet.

@Jonathan Gregory Indeed, buy a 3 ~ 5 year old used large screen laptop (a Dell L702X, or a Dell Precision M6300, for example), wipe it, and load a FREE copy of Ubuntu 14.04LTS on it.

The Ubuntu Project is looking at attempting a form of convergence with Ubuntu available on Desk/Laptops, Tablets, and Phones. I personally believe that the Phone solution won't really replace the large screen & keyboard input environment afforded by a 17"+ computer.

@Andrew Montooth Apple figures that, when it comes to portable and desktop computers (vs. mobile devices), using multi-touch gestures on a dedicated horizontal surface (the MacBook's glass-surface touchpad) is better than the same on a vertical surface meant for display. Apple's choice avoids user arm fatigue and smudged screens. I think Apple made the right choice.

@Andrew Montooth Agreed. My wife has a Lenovo X1 Carbon Touch(not sure if same as yours, but never the less omitted from the report) and it is the epitome of a luxury ultrabook. But we both want a SP3 now! We haven't bought a new apple product since 2011 (ipad2's) and see no need to. Sister in laws mac air collects dust now after never using it, she went back to Windows and touch Laptop config.

@Mac Moore "I keep looking for a powerful Apple with a small foot print, but so far that hasn't happened. I picked up a Surface Pro a couple months ago and am quite happy with it."

That's strange, Mac. The Surface Pro is just 3/10ths of an inch narrower but 4/10ths of an inch deeper than the MacBook Air. It looks like the MacBook Air actually has a smaller footprint than the Surface Pro you bought!

By the way, in terms of performance, both systems can be equipped with similar CPU and GPU options.

@Michael Himowitz Hello? The arrow keys and delete key work just fine on Macs and don't require using function keys. Most scrolling and commands can be done with multitouch on the trackpad. For example, to go from browser to desktops, push up with four fingers. For multiple browser windows, pull down with three or four fingers, according to your settings.

It is weird to see you recommend technology that is backwards in comparison. Do you want the modem, optical and floppy disk drives back, too?

@Michael Himowitz I've owned Macs for the last several years and was considering the Mac Air but did not realize the "delete" and other keys were missing. I don't use them often but this is good to know.

@Gary Blakely I totally agree. Although I prefer Lenovo for a pure development laptop (with 3 monitors), the Surface certainly has no equal as a laptop/tablet and would certainly be the first choice for students with $$$. And I, like many of my colleagues, use Windows 8 all the time and never with a touch screen for the laptop. Ms. Stern makes a poor reviewer as she obviously has Apple bias, and does not explore the many ways that people use computers. Can you imagine such a review for what is the best car? :)

@David Ecale@Jonathan Gregory Definitely agree! That is what I did with an old Dell M1530 XPS plus some cheap RAM upgrades from eBay (~$15). It is so much better than the Windows bloat. I have now gone a full year without Windows on any of my devices--it is awesome.

The Ubuntu for Android Project does indeed have a long ways to go. Hopefully the end result will be the significant contribution Canonical says it will be. We shall see... I have heard Europe and Africa will get the first real releases. In the meantime, xda-developers.com has some great Ubuntu mods (all in various stages of completion) to try out on many Android devices if one is bold.

@Chris Henry@Jennifer Brown@Michael Himowitz I just realized Michael is probably talking about the six keys on the keyboard for some laptops: insert, delete, home, end, etc. NOT the actual delete button. Thanks for pointing it out, Chris.

@Jamilla Graves@Jonathan Gregory@David Ecale Hi Jamilla. Thanks for your comments. For personal computing, Ubuntu is more/less there now. They have worked around 95+% of those issues. Have you tried a Linux or Unix derived system? If you have an old laptop, I recommend trying it for free. Also, the Apple OS is Unix derived too and people have been using that for years in the office and at home...

I agree with you that there are large hurdles in the IT department at a corporation. It will probably be a long time before Linux has more of an everyday role for the average corporate computing solution.

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